Lincoln: Film Review

Lincoln: Film Review 

• The Bottom Line

An absorbing, densely packed, sometimes funny telling of the 16th president's masterful effort in manipulating the passage of the 13th amendment.

• Cast

Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, David Strathairn, Joseph Gordon-Leavitt, James Spader, Hal Holbrook, Tommy Lee Jones, John Hawkes, Jackie Earle Haley, Bruce McGill, Tim Blake Nelson, Joseph Cross, Jared Harris, Fernando Wood

• Director

Steven Spielberg

• Screenwriter

Tony Kushner, based in part on the book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Daniel Day-Lewis stars as the sixteenth president in the historical drama directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Tony Kushner.

Far from being a traditional biographical drama, Lincoln dedicates itself to doing something very few Hollywood films have ever attempted, much less succeeded at: showing, from historical example, how our political system works in an intimate procedural and personal manner. That the case in point is the hair-breadth passage by the House of Representatives of the epochal 13th amendment abolishing slavery and that the principal orchestrator is President Abraham Lincoln in the last days of his life endow Steven Spielberg's film with a great theme and subject, which are honored with intelligence, humor and relative restraint.

Tony Kushner's densely packed script has been directed by Spielberg in an efficient, unpretentious way that suggests Michael Curtiz at Warner Bros. in the 1940s, right down to the rogue's gallery of great character actors in a multitude of bewhiskered supporting roles backing up a first-rate leading performance by Daniel Day-Lewis. The wall-to-wall talk and lack of much Civil War action may give off the aroma of schoolroom medicine to some, but the elemental drama being played out, bolstered by the prestige of the participants and a big push by Disney, should make this rare film about American history pay off commercially.

 First unveiled at an unannounced sneak preview at the New York Film Festival on Oct.

8, Lincoln will receive its official world premiere on Nov. 8 at the AFI Film Festival in Los Angeles in advance of its Nov. 9 limited opening and wider release on Nov. 16.

on the tumultuous period between January, 1865 and the conclusion of the Civil War on April 9 and Lincoln's assassination five days later, on Good Friday, this is history that plays out mostly in wood paneled rooms darkened by thick drapes and heavy furniture and, increasingly, in the intimate House chamber where the strength of the anti-abolitionist Democrats will be tested against Lincoln's moderates and the more zealous anti-slavery radicals of the young Republican party. Occasionally, there are glimpses of life outside the inner sanctums of government, first on the battlefield, where black Union troops join in the vicious hand-to-hand combat where the mud renders the gray and blue uniforms all but indistinguishable; in the dusty streets of the nation's capital, and in the verdant surrounding countryside.

 The stiffest challenge facing Kushner was to lay out enough exposition in the early-going to give viewers their bearings while simultaneously jump-starting the film's dramatic movement. Quite a bit of information simply has to be dropped in quickly to get it over with—Mary Todd Lincoln's continuing depression over the death of a son three years earlier, her husband's re-election the previous November, the need for Lincoln to win over some 20 Democrats to achieve the two-thirds majority required to pass—but the estimable playwright mostly manages to cover so many mandatory issues by plausibly making them the subjects of the characters' vivid conversation. Particularly helpful in this regard are the intimate talks between Lincoln (Day-Lewis) and his most valued adviser, Secretary of State William Seward (David Strathairn), as well with his party's founder Preston Blair (Hal Holbrook, a famous Lincoln in his own time).

Having signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and gotten easy Senate passage of the 13th amendment the previous April, Lincoln is determined to push the House to act quickly and put his signature on the new law by February 1, before the war is likely to end. What follows is a course in political persuasion in all its forms: cajoling, intimidation, promises, horse-trading, strong-arming and intellectual persuasion, down-home style. In conversation and physical movement, Lincoln is a deliberate fellow who takes his time, a country lawyer whose rumpled exterior conceals abiding principles and an iron will, a man of no personal vanity or fancy education who is nevertheless unafraid to cite Euclid, notably in his equation of equality=fairness=justice, with which Lincoln frames the slavery issue.

 Fundamentally unhappy in his family life with his almost continually complaining wife Mary (a very good Sally Field), who despairs of being condemned to “four more years in this terrible house,” and oldest son Robert (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a college lad desperate to enlist in the army over his parents' objections, Lincoln seems to find the greatest pleasure in spinning amusing life-lesson yarns dating to his lawyering days. The film accrues much-needed levity from these interludes, less from the stories themselves than from the reactions of his captive audiences; by the third or fourth time Lincoln embarks on one of his tales, the polite attention paid by his listeners has descended to “here-he-goes-again” eye-rolling and ill-concealed smirking. As he demonstrated in Angels in America, Kushner, who previously co-wrote Munich for Spielberg, is adept at juggling a huge number of characters without confusion. One of the main subplots details the efforts of three Republican roustabouts (James Spader, James Hawkes, Tim Blake Nelson) to use any means necesssary to change some minds on the Democratic side while at Lincoln's behest delaying a high-level Confederate delegation making its way to Washington to talk peace. There are also occasional glimpses of General Ulysses Grant (Jared Harris) trying to discern whether the South is ready to call it quits. But increasingly, attention focuses on Pennsylvania Rep.

Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones), a lifelong activist for absolute equality among the races philosophically opposed to going along with a watered-down law. The loss of his and other radical Republicans' support would spell disaster for Lincoln who, in all events, faces a massive challenge that calls on all the political, personal and persuasive skills he has honed over a lifetime. At the film's center, then, lies one of the remarkable characters in world history at the critical moment of his life. As Walt Whitman said of Lincoln (as he did of himself), “he contained multitudes,” and Day-Lewis's sly, slow-burn performance wonderfully fulfills this description. Gangly, grizzled and, as his wife was known to say, “not pretty,” this Lincoln plainly shows his humble origins and is more disheveled than his Washington colleagues. With an astonishing physical resemblance to the real man, Day-Lewis excels when shifting into what was perhaps Lincoln's most comfortable mode, that of frisky storyteller, especially in the way he seems to anticipate and relish his listeners' reactions. But he is also a hard-nosed negotiator with that critical attribute of great politicians in a democracy: an unyielding inner core of principle cloaked by a strategic willingness to compromise in the interests of getting his way. A long scene in which he hashes things out with his cabinet (the single most explicit evocation of Doris Kearns Goodwin's book Team of Rivals, the one credited partial source of the screenplay) vividly exhibits his skills in action. The rare moments when Lincoln loses his temper are startling, but also hint that his outbursts might be pre-planned for effect.

 Lincoln seems most ill-at-ease in domestic exchanges with his family, especially with his harping wife, to whose repetitive complaints her husband cannot possibly invent any new answers, even if her sorrow is rooted in genuine depression. The dramatic and raucous vote on the 13th amendment is both exhilarating and unexpectedly humorous, with much shouting, threatening and fist-waving, fence-stradling Democrats being shamed by their colleages and a gallery audience (including some blacks) hanging on every yeah and neh, climaxed, of course, by the exhaltation of victory. Appomattox, with proud General Lee high on his white horse, is briefly shown, and Kushner and Spielberg have invented a novel way of portraying the fateful events at Ford's Theater that doesn't even show John Wilkes Booth. For whatever reason, the filmmakers have skipped the ripe opportunity to portray one of the most extraordinary and haunting episodes of this entire period, that of Lincoln's nearly solitary early morning walk through the streets of Richmond.

The partly burning city had just been abandoned by the Confederate government and Lincoln increasingly became surrounded by awestruck, suddenly free blacks who could scarcely believe who had just entered their midst, some reacting as if he were Jesus incarnate. Finally arriving at the capital building, he entered the office of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, sat in his chair and quietly drank a glass of water.

 In the event, Spielberg directs in a to-the-point, self-effacing style, with only minor instances of artificially inflated emotionalism and a humor that mostly undercuts eruptions of self-importance. It's a conscientious piece of work very much in the service of the material, in the manner of the good old Hollywood pros, without frills or grandiosity. At the same time, however, it lacks that final larger dimension and poetic sense such as can be found in John Ford's great 1939 Young Mr. Lincoln, to which Spielberg's film is a biographical and thematic bookend. Further helping matters is the mostly subdued score by John Williams, whose over-the-top contribution to War Horse last year proved so counter-productive to that film's effect. Working predominantly in shades of blue and black, cinematographer Janusz Kaminski takes a similarly straightforward approach, while the period evocation achieved by many hands led by production designer Rick Carter, costume designer Joanna Johnston and the makeup and hair team is detailed and lacking in embalmed fastidiousness. Other than Day-Lewis, acting honors go to Jones, who clearly relishes the rich role of Stevens and whose crusty smarts prove both formidable and funny.

Very much a good guy here, Stevens in earlier cinematic days was always portrayed as an extremist villain, both in The Birth of a Nation and in the odd 1943 Andrew Johnson biographical drama Tennessee Johnson. Venue: AFI Film Festival (closing night) Release: Oct. 9 (Disney/Touchstone) Production: DreamWorks, 20th Century Fox, Reliance Entertainment, Amblin Entertainment, Kennedy/Marshall Prods.

•  Cast:

Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, David Strathairn, Joseph Gordon-Leavitt, James Spader, Hal Holbrook, Tommy Lee Jones, John Hawkes, Jackie Earle Haley, Bruce McGill, Tim Blake Nelson, Joseph Cross, Jared Harris, Fernando Wood

• Director:

Steven Spielberg Screenwriter: Tony Kushner, based in part on the book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin Producers: Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy 

• Executive producers:

Daniel Lupi, Jeff Skoll, Jonathan King Director of photography: Janusz Kaminski Production designer: Rick Carter Costume designer: Joanna Johnston

•   Editor:
• Michael Kahn Music: John Williams 

• PG-13, 149 minutes

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SEAL Team Six: The Raid on Osama Bin Laden: Film Review

The movie beats Kathryn Bigelow’s "Zero Dark Thirty" by airing -- controversially -- on Nat Geo two days before the election, but Republicans really shouldn't worry, writes Tim Goodman.

The National Geographic Channel may have won the race to be the first to portray the events that led to the killing of Osama Bin Laden – beating Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty to the big screen by rushing to the small screen on Nov. 4 – but it’s still too soon to say if being the first is the same as being the best.

Nat Geo will air SEAL Team Six: The Raid on Osama Bin Laden on Sunday at 8 p.m. (and has opened in theaters internationally). The film comes from The Weinstein Company and is directed by John Stockwell (Into the Blue, Turistas, Crazy/Beautiful) and produced by Nicolas Chartier, who was a producer on The Hurt Locker, Bigelow’s Academy Award-winning film.


Both SEAL Team Six and Zero Dark Thirty have been pre-emptively called enablers for President Obama, since the killing of Bin Laden was a major coup for him. But SEAL Team Six will come under more scrutiny because it will air two days before the election and then be available the next day on Netflix.
Still, it’s hard to imagine this film (or even the unseen, save for trailers, Zero Dark Thirty), moving the needle on an election. Why? Because everyone in the world knows what happened and how it ended. The whole thing is in the history books. And with the publication of No Easy Day from SEAL member Mark Owen, it’s not like the world lacks for details if they really want to seek them out.
And yet if any Republicans are worried this sneaky little move by Nat Geo and TWC be a knockout blow or even a jab in this upcoming election, they should rest easy. That’s because the film really isn’t that good.


All the compelling parts are precisely as you’d imagine them to be – the intelligence reports that unearthed Bin Laden’s whereabouts in Pakistan, the risk of every attack option, the stark reality that the intel might be wrong and the United States – and by extension Obama – would be embarrassed and finally the nerve-wracking mission itself.
It doesn’t take much of a genius or even a dramatist to understand that those are the core elements. In fact-based dramas, knowing the ending is a real hindrance because there’s no mystery or suspense. When the SEALs enter the compound you know they’re not going to be killed. You know they’re going to get Bin Laden, they’re going to get away, and the near screw-up with one of the two helicopters going down in the compound is not going to ruin everything.
So, where’s the drama? Technically you don’t need any more rama than all of the action listed above – you just need a director and a budget that’s going to make the whole thing pulse-pounding and bad-ass. Parts of SEAL Team Six: The Raid on Osama bin Laden make that happen, but the 90-minute film misses the essential element that it needed (and Bigelow’s film will need): character development.


Stockwell’s film resorts to the now-boring conceit of having the participants talk to the camera. This exposition is not only a cheat, cutting corners by telling when it could be showing, but it never lets the audience feel anything for the characters. They are mostly cardboard cutouts.
SEAL Team Six stars Cam Gigandet as Stunner, the team leader; Anson Mount as Cherry, the more renegade SEAL who has trouble being led by the younger Stunner; rapper XZBIT (Alvin Joiner) playing Mule; Freddy Rodriguez as Trench; and Kenneth Miller as Sauce rounding out the team. Robert Knepper is billed as merely Lt. Commander.
The problem with that list is that Gigandet is allowed almost no time to show the audience he’s the team leader. Mount steals the better material and only in rare flashes do we learn anything about the others. In fact, there’s so little of Sauce in the film that he’s barely a seasoning. You can’t mine drama from characters you’re not manipulated into liking or loathing.


The person who gets the most mileage out of SEAL Team Six is Kathleen Robertson (Boss) as Vivian Hollins, the CIA analyst who has been hell bent on getting Bin Laden since the Sept. 11 attack on the Twin Towers. There are two problems here. First, all any fan of Homeland, the Showtime series that just swept the Emmys, will think is that Robertson is essentially Claire Danes playing Carrie, the CIA analyst hell bent on bringing down the fictional Abu Nazir after the Sept. 11 attacks. Robertson, who does great work on Boss, isn’t given anything remotely interesting for her character – like Carrie’s mental issues and her love of jazz – and instead gets the most clichéd, rote dialogue to read as she talks to the camera in those faux interviews.
Eddie Kay Thomas and William Fichtner are in this movie as well, but they are also ghosts who leave little memory for the viewer.
That’s not to say that some of the combat scenes in SEAL Team Six are not riveting, as is the aforementioned final days and minutes leading up to the raid on Bin Laden’s compound. But with almost no emotional interest in these undeveloped characters, the movie feels more like it was tossed together in an effort to be first on any screen – small or large.


SEAL Team Six is interspersed with photos and interviews of Obama and the players around him during that difficult decision process, and if you’re really into that sort of thing you could spot one or two moments that certainly looked like political ads. A photo of Obama mulling over something enormous certainly gives him gravitas and there’s more than a few shots with American flags after the news of Bin Laden’s death.
But this is a movie that feels like a documentary at times, a cheesy docudrama at others and some kind of slapped together film that wants to be taken seriously as well. Whatever you may think of how it was sewn together, SEAL Team Six isn’t particularly bad, it’s just not particularly good or interesting.
What is interesting is that in the Nat Geo press materials, Stockwell gets a page and a half for a “director’s statement,” then another page and a half for an essay called “Can a Movie Swing an Election?”


The latter isn’t particularly convincing and the former brings up interesting questions about the process that might have made for fantastic dramatic scenes. Unfortunately, they’re not in the movie. For example, here’s something Stockwell writes in his statement: “What if bin Laden had fled the compound when he heard the approaching choppers? Would we have pursued him through the streets of Abbottabad? What if the Pakistan military had shot down one of our helicopters; engaged in a firefight with our troops and took hostages; or used fighter jets? There were also suspicions that the house was rigged to explode or that the occupants had a cache of Stinger missiles and the enclosed rooftop patio was the perfect launching pad to take down the vulnerable hovering Blackhawks. What if large numbers of the women and children in the compound had been injured or killed? What if there had been Americancasualties? And the most potentially disastrous outcome – what if any of the above had happened, and the intended target of the raid wasn’t even there?”

Thanks for Sharing: Toronto Review

The Bottom Line

A compassionate and frequently funny look at sex addiction that rolls out too many pat developments to muster much depth.

Venue

Toronto Film Festival (Special Presentation)

Cast

Mark Ruffalo, Gwyneth Paltrow, Tim Robbins, Josh Gad, Joely Richardson, Patrick Fugit, Carol Kane, Alecia Moore

Director

Stuart Blumberg

Screenwriters

Stuart Blumberg, Matt Winston
Mark Ruffalo, Gwyneth Paltrow, Tim Robbins, Josh Gad and Pink star in Oscar-nominated screenwriter Stuart Blumberg's directing debut, about a handful of people battling sex addiction.

TORONTO – With a subject as specific as sex addiction, comparisons to last year’s Shame are inevitable. That dark drama was a deep-probe character study, intensely focused on a man consumed by his cravings. By contrast, Thanks for Sharing is an ensemble piece juggling humor with sober observation of three men intent on overcoming their dependence on the pleasures of the flesh. Making a technically polished directing debut, screenwriter Stuart Blumberg (The Kids are All Right) has in essence crafted the date-night version of the sexaholic’s confessional.

While it doesn’t crawl under the skin the way the Steve McQueen film did, this seriocomedy will probably prove more widely accessible, with a marketable name cast and a glossy portrait of New York as a playground of visual stimuli. Captured in crisp advertising imagery and singing colors by cinematographer Yaron Orbach, it’s a metropolitan catwalk, a promo-reel for romance and desire. Gorgeous women glide along the streets, pretty young couples make out on the High Line, and every billboard, bus hoarding and taxi TV explodes with sensuality.

All of that keeps Thanks for Sharing watchable and mildly entertaining, even if it’s 15-20 minutes too long. What stops the film from being more satisfying, however, is a problem with the way the central character’s arc takes shape, and a key piece of miscasting.

Bashing Gwyneth Paltrow has become a tired, easy sport that anyone can play. But her preening performance in an inconsistently drawn role here is a major intrusion.

A smart, soulful environmental consultant celebrating five years in recovery, Marc Ruffalo’s Adam is carefully set up to give the film a core of emotional integrity. When his sponsor, Mike (Tim Robbins), insists it’s time for him to bite the bullet and start dating again, he conveniently meets Paltrow’s Phoebe at a foodie bug-tasting evening. She’s a cancer survivor and fitness fanatic whose last boyfriend’s alcoholism gave her an aversion to addicts, which means Adam predictably stalls before sharing details of his recovery.

In a staggeringly miscalculated scene, Phoebe processes the unsettling news and then gives the relationship another shot by stripping down to fetish lingerie and demonstrating her lap-dancing skills on a stunned Adam. While this reads as insensitive, sadistic, stupid or all three, Blumberg and co-scripter Matt Winston justify the behavior by having Phoebe say, “I’m a very sexual person. I need to express that side of me.” The queen of mixed signals, she’s a phony character, and a too-transparent catalyst for Adam’s inevitable fall from the wagon.

This shortchanges Ruffalo, who gives a typically sensitive performance, both in his monastic adherence to the vigilant rules of sobriety and his wounded admission of defeat. But it’s hard to remain invested in whether or not Adam and Phoebe work things out. He deserves better.

The film has more nuance and credibility in its secondary strands. One concerns the stubbornness of Mike, an aphorism-spouting addiction group elder statesman, who has little faith in the claim that his ex-junkie son Danny (Patrick Fugit) is now clean and eager to atone for his missteps. And Danny is still waiting for Mike’s contrition for his drunken toxicity during the boy’s childhood. Both actors bring conviction to the gradual bridging of the distance between them, and the test of their hard-won trust, with Joely Richardson adding tender notes as Danny’s mother.

Also getting considerable attention is the progress of Neil (Josh Gad), a chubby young ER medic doing court-ordered SAA time for nonconsensual frottage. Unrepentant at first, and reluctant to adopt the austerity measures required by the program – no television, no Internet, no masturbation, no subways – Neil alienates his designated sponsor, Adam. But when he’s fired as a result of his illness, he gets serious. Help comes, paradoxically, from the lone female in the group, Dede (Alecia Moore), a tattooed tough girl who has hit 30 with the realization that she can only relate to men through sex.

A breakout star of The Book of Mormon on Broadway, Gad does the film’s comedic heavy lifting, much of it demeaning physical gags and scenes with his suffocating Jewish mother (Carol Kane). But it’s in the sweet blossoming of Neil’s loving yet platonic friendship with Dede, and their mutual support, that Gad’s work resonates most. Better known as pop-punkster Pink, Moore proves a capable actor and a relaxed, enormously likeable screen presence.

Showing an even-handed mix of dramatic episodes with light moments, Blumberg and Winston’s script mostly treats sex addiction not as joke fodder but as a serious condition. Unlike the director’s work on The Kids Are All Right, however, in which every emotional response felt organic to the characters and their situation, Thanks for Sharing is resolutely neat and tidy. Not to mention overwritten. Too much of what happens as the characters undergo their various brushes with failure and redemption feels predetermined, slapping what aims to be a much savvier film with a debilitating touch of the formulaic.

Venue: Toronto Film Festival (Special Presentation)

Production company: Olympus Pictures, Class 5 Films

Cast: Mark Ruffalo, Gwyneth Paltrow, Tim Robbins, Josh Gad, Joely Richardson, Patrick Fugit, Carol Kane, Alecia Moore, Emily Meade, Isiah Whitlock, Michaela Watkins, Poorna Jagannathan

Director: Stuart Blumberg

Screenwriters: Stuart Blumberg, Matt Winston

Producers: William Migliore, David Koplan, Leslie Urdang, Dean Vanech, Miranda de Pencier

Executive producer: Edward Norton

Director of photography: Yaron Orbach

Production designer: Beth Mickle

Music: Christopher Lennertz

Costume designer: Peggy Schnitzer

Editor: Anne McCabe

Sales: Voltage Pictures/UTA

No rating, 112 minutes

Silver Linings Playbook: Toronto Review

The Bottom Line

Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence expand their range in David O. Russell's winning comedy romance about two people struggling to rebuild their lives.

Venue

Toronto Film Festival (Gala; The Weinstein Co.; opens Wednesday, Nov. 21)

Cast

Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Jacki Weaver, Anupam Kher, Chris Tucker, Julia Stiles, John Ortiz, Shea Whigham, Dash Mihok

Director-screenwriter

David O. Russell

Writer-director David O. Russell's return to comedy features an ace ensemble cast that includes Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Jacki Weaver and Chris Tucker.

TORONTO -- While David O. Russell’s foray into conventional drama with The Fighter was a richly satisfying knockout, it’s a joy to see him back in the off-kilter comedy realm with the wonderful Silver Linings Playbook. Cheerfully yet poignantly exposing the struggles, anxieties, disorders and obsessions of ordinary people, this is a film as odd as it is charming. It brings out the best in a superlative cast led by Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, both showing unexpected colors.

Adapted by Russell from Matthew Quick’s well-received 2008 novel, the comedy in many ways recalls the director’s early brush with a screwy family, Flirting With Disaster. And Pat Solatano (Cooper) is a similarly driven central character to the one played by Ben Stiller in that 1996 film, just quite a bit more unstable. There’s a degree of dysfunction in almost all the characters here, but this comes off as the affectionately observed foibles of real people, not calculated movie eccentricities.

A longtime sufferer of undiagnosed bipolar disorder, former high school teacher Pat has spent eight months in a psychiatric facility on a plea bargain after a violent incident when he surprised his wife Nikki (Brea Bee) having sex with their co-worker. Released into the care of his parents, Pat Sr. (Robert De Niro) and Dolores (Jacki Weaver), he is determined to put his newfound hospital wisdom into practice.

“I’m remaking myself,” he says, vowing to find the silver lining in every situation. Pat remains convinced this is the way to win back Nikki, who has filed a restraining order against him.

Initial signs are not promising, however, as Pat reacts badly to the trigger of their wedding song (Stevie Wonder doing “My Cherie Amour”) and gets manic as he tears up the house looking for their nuptials video. In the most hilarious of the early scenes, as he’s reading Nikki’s teaching syllabus to be supportive, he wakes his parents at 4 a.m. to rant about Ernest Hemingway’s refusal to end A Farewell to Arms on a happy note.
Cooper gives filter-free Pat a desperation that’s both painful and funny, asserting his positivity and growth while at the same time emitting alarm signals. The actor’s work becomes even more appealing once Lawrence enters the picture as Tiffany. A young widow depressed since the death of her cop husband -- and possibly before -- she’s every bit as volatile and blunt as Pat and also tainted by her own dark meltdown.
Given the quirkiness of the humor, the pathos slowly generated by these characters is unexpected. The chemistry between Cooper and Lawrence makes them a delight to watch, their spiky rapport failing to conceal a mutual attraction.

Remaining stubbornly fixated on the absent Nikki, Pat ropes Tiffany into helping open communication channels by delivering a letter. In exchange, Tiffany insists that he partner her in a dance competition, requiring long rehearsal sessions in her garage studio. The loveliest of these scenes is set to the melancholy waltz strains of “Girl From the North Country,” sung by Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash, which typifies Russell’s idiosyncratic music choices.

Working with cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi and editor Jay Cassidy, Russell gives the comedy an invigorating messiness. The action is shot and cut with the same nervous energy that hard-wires the two central characters. It’s no mystery where their relationship is headed, even with all the clashes and mutual disappointments. But the crazy ways the film gets there feel fresh.

Russell is working in an absurd, comedy-of-awkwardness vein, but he captures genuine vulnerability in his characters and their various degrees of imbalance. This pertains in particular to Pat’s father, who shows that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Having lost his job and his pension, Pat Sr. runs a small betting operation, which he hopes will finance a cheesesteak joint. His love for his home football team, the Philadelphia Eagles, is a consuming passion fueled by distinct OCD traits and governed by superstitions. Given that his father has been banned from the stadium for repeatedly starting fights, Pat wonders in therapy why his single violent episode is considered so much worse.

Pat Sr. is a gem of a role, and De Niro hasn’t been this alive and emotionally engaged onscreen in years. A scene in which he melts while conceding to Pat that he might not have been the most nurturing parent is an extremely touching moment. Australian actress Weaver (Animal Kingdom) is daffy and warm as Pat’s salt-of-the-earth mother, who frets about her son being able to keep it together.

One of the chief pleasures here is the incisive work of actors in even the smallest roles. As Pat’s best friend Ronnie, John Ortiz bristles with the stress of home, job, baby and controlling wife in Tiffany’s sister, played with cool command by Julia Stiles. Indian veteran Anupam Kher brings a nice needling manner to Pat’s therapist, who’s also a mad Eagles fan. And Chris Tucker drops in now and then as a nutty pal from the clinic, who seems quite comfortable with his tics.

But while the entire ensemble is sharp, their work would be nothing without two such deftly anchoring lead performances to bounce off. Cooper brings enormous heart to a role that easily might have veered toward the abrasive, and Lawrence shows off natural comic chops that we haven’t seen much from her. There’s self-exposure and risk in both these actors’ work here, which makes for rewarding comedy.

Venue: Toronto Film Festival (Gala; The Weinstein Co.)

Production: The Weinstein Co.

Cast: Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Jacki Weaver, Anupam Kher, Chris Tucker, Julia Stiles, John Ortiz, Shea Whigham, Dash Mihok, Paul Herman, Brea Bee

Director-screenwriter: David O. Russell, based on the novel by Matthew Quick

Producers: Donna Gigliotti, Bruce Cohen, Jonathan Gordon

Executive producers: Bob Weinstein, Harvey Weinstein, George Para, Michelle Raimo, Bradley Cooper

Director of photography: Masanobu Takayanagi

Production designer: Judy Becker

Music: Danny Elfman

Costume designer: Mark Bridges

Editor: Jay Cassidy

Sales: CAA/WME

No rating, 117 minutes

Gebo and the Shadow (Gebo et l'Ombre): Venice Review

The Bottom Line

Old-school charm and expert performances elevate a somewhat creaky theatrical adaptation by the tireless centenarian Manoel de Oliveira.

Venue

Venice Film Festival

Director-Screenwriter

Manoel de Oliviera

Cast

Michael Lonsdale, Claudia Cardinale, Jeanne Moreau, Leonor Silveira

French-Portuguese co-production from the world's oldest filmmaker Manoel de Oliviera is adapted from Raul Brandão's 1923 play, also known as "The Hunchback and His Shadow."

When it comes to current cinema, there is retro, there is old-fashioned, and there is Manoel de Oliveira, the 103-year-old from Portugal whose style hasn't changed that much through an utterly unique seven-decade filmmaking career. His latest, French-Portuguese co-production, Gebo and the Shadow (Gebo et l'ombre) thus offers a kind of time-travel for patient, older audiences willing to immerse themselves in a bygone universe.

The prominent presence of veterans Michael Lonsdale, Claudia Cardinale and Jeanne Moreau in the six-strong cast may ensure a wider level of appeal than is usually the case with de Oliveira, but this deliberately low-key theatrical adaptation faces a tough task to have much of a life beyond the festival circuit. World-premiering in Venice before a North American bow in Toronto, Gebo and the Shadow is released in France on Sept. 26 and Portugal the following day, at a time when the miraculously indefatigable de Oliveira continues pre-production on his next opus, The Devil's Church.
Raul Brandão's 1923 play, also known as The Hunchback and His Shadow, may not be particularly famous outside Portugal but according to de Oliveira was a key influence on Samuel Beckett's Waiting For Godot. The big difference here is that the "Godot" figure, prodigal son João (Ricardo Trêpa), whose eight-year absence from the family home is discussed by his father Gebo (Lonsdale), mother Doroteia (Cardinale) and wife Sofia (Leonor Silveira) throughout the talkily repetitive early stretches, actually turns up at the end of the first 'act.'
It's not hard to see why the lad stayed away so long, with his nearest and dearest enduring what they describe as "terrible poverty" in an unspecified coastal Portuguese city (all the characters speak French) during an unspecified historical period that might be the 1900 or 1910s. Before João's entrance, de Oliveira evokes the suffocating, stultifying confines of the family dwelling all too convincingly, to an extent that requires considerable indulgence and attention from his audience. This investment is duly repaid in the second half after lively philosopher-criminal João makes his unexpected and spectacular entrance, theatrically espousing a nihilistic, Jean Genet-like credo of theft and amoral heroism ("I am he that causes suffering, and laughs," he brags.)

Trêpa copes OK with this very tricky role, but the trump card of Gebo and the Shadow is the ensemble of superb older performers who comprise the remainder of the dramatis personae. Particularly noteworthy is Silveira's subtly affecting and sensitively modulated turn as the abandoned wife, while it's refreshing to see a picture that ends with a dramatic freeze-frame rather that the sudden blackout that's become the modish conclusion for arthouse productions.
Is a production of unobtrusive, old-school professionalism on the craft side, with cinematographer Renato Berta's 35mm images rendered, in a rare concession to changing times, via digital intermediate. Berta captures the hazily soft glow of interior illumination from gas and candles, the results reminding us that Manoel de Oliveira is the only filmmaker on the planet who can actually remember what the light was really like in the 1910s.

Venue: Venice Film Festival (Out of Competition)

Production company: MACT Productions, O som e a fúria

Cast: Michael Lonsdale, Claudia Cardinale, Jeanne Moreau, Leonor Silveira, Ricardo Trêpa, Luís Miguel Cintra

Director / Screenwriter: Manoel de Oliviera, based on the play by Raul Brandão

Producers: Maerine de Clermont-Tonnerre, Luis Urbano

Director of photography: Renato Berta

Production designer: Christian Marti

Costume designer: Adelaide Trêpa

Editor: Valérie Loiseleux

Sales agent: Pyramide International, Paris

No MPAA rating, 94 minutes.

Source: HollywoodReporter

Film Review: 10 Years

The Bottom Line

Reunion-centered ensemble pic isn't as funny as advertised, but happily avoids full-on sappiness too.

Opens:

Friday, September 14 (Anchor Bay)

Cast:

Channing Tatum, Jenna Dewan-Tatum, Chris Pratt, Rosario Dawson, Justin Long, Oscar Isaac, Kate Mara, Ron Livingston, Lynn Collins, Ari Graynor, Anthony Mackie, Max Minghella, Aubrey Plaza, Scott Porter, Brian Geraghty , Aaron Yoo, Eiko Nijo, Nick Zano

Director-Screenwriter:

Jamie Linden

Jamie Linden surrounds his "Dear John" star Channing Tatum with a strong ensemble cast

A high-school reunion story that spreads attention among its high-profile cast members more evenly than the average film of this sort, Jamie Linden's 10 Years is dedicated to the urge to believe that a single get-together can afford closure on everything from prom night disappointments to misguided life choices. More bittersweet than funny but not a downer overall, the pic has reasonable prospects with young viewers who haven't seen many of its thematic ancestors.

While Linden's script spreads the subplots around heavily, the movie's main identification is with Jake (Channing Tatum, who just so happens to be a producer), who loves girlfriend Jess (Tatum's wife, Jenna Dewan-Tatum) but can't decide when to pop the question. Bringing Jess along to his ten-year reunion, he's flustered to see high school sweetheart Mary (Rosario Dawson) and the husband (Ron Livingston) he didn't know she had.

Buzzing around Jake in a flurry of "so good to see you!"s are old classmates who became rock stars (Oscar Isaac), moved to the big city (Justin Long), or simply decided to grow up and stop bullying nerds (Chris Pratt, helped by unusually tolerant wife Ari Graynor). As usual with a large ensemble, recounting the subplots (and even the characters) would take a while, but only a couple of key cast members get lost in the shuffle (sorry, Anthony Mackie).

Among the more successful throughlines is a second-chance courtship between Isaac's rock star and the only girl at the reunion (Kate Mara) who isn't fawning over him, and, it turns out, has never even heard his hit song. Among the least pleasing is one in which Pratt tries to make amends with every nerd he ever belittled, winds up making them deeply uncomfortable, and eventually drinks himself into a full reversion to jerk mode. If anybody could keep this ball rolling, it's Pratt, who in previous roles has trained viewers to love him despite many faults. Though we're with Pratt for a while, Linden soon forces him to be more of a boor than we can take.

It wouldn't be a party without some drunken unpleasantness, of course. And 10 Years benefits from actors (like Dawson) who can generate enough distractingly warm-hearted vibes to keep the overall mood positive. This isn't a new generation's Big Chill and doesn't try to be -- but it's a good deal more genuine-feeling than American Reunion, whose characters graduated just a couple of years earlier than this crew but seem much closer to settling into dull adulthood.
Production Companies: Temple Hill, Iron Horse

Cast: Channing Tatum, Jenna Dewan-Tatum, Chris Pratt, Rosario Dawson, Justin Long, Oscar Isaac, Kate Mara, Ron Livingston, Lynn Collins, Ari Graynor, Anthony Mackie, Max Minghella, Aubrey Plaza, Scott Porter, Brian Geraghty , Aaron Yoo, Eiko Nijo, Nick Zano

Director-Screenwriter: Jamie Linden

Producers: Wyck Godfrey, Marty Bowen, Reid Carolin, Channing Tatum

Executive producers: Frank Mancuso, Jr., Eric Gores

Director of photography: Steven Fierberg

Production designer: Kara Lindstrom

Music: Chad Fischer

Costume designer: Trayce Gigi Field

Editor: Jake Pushinsky

PG-13, 100 minutes

Source: Hollywoodreporter

The Iran Job: LAFF Review

An African-American basketball player picks up some life lessons during a stint playing in an Iranian pro league.

Despite a title suggesting an alternative Three Kings-style caper movie, The Iran Job is a fairly prosaic sports-meets-social issue doc that’s long on goodwill, but short on dramatic development. International- and documentary-focused fests may take notice; prospects otherwise lie with cable or VOD.

Pro basketball player Kevin Sheppard is a gun-for-hire, contracting out to international teams worldwide from his home in the US Virgin Islands to bolster their often shaky ranks. After stints in Brazil, China, Spain and Venezuela, Sheppard ships out to Iran in 2008 for a year leading the newly formed A.S. Shiraz team in the national Super League, right in the midst of vitriolic Bush administration anti-Iran posturing.

Excelling in the league would seem to offer little challenge for African-American point guard Sheppard, since the average skill level remains noticeably below even top American college teams, but he’s constantly held back by his bumbling teammates. Adjusting to both conservative Islamic culture and the amateurish level of play, Sheppard improbably succeeds at bringing the team along as they haltingly advance toward the final-eight championship round.

Meanwhile the country is seething with political turmoil, as upstarts in the reformist Green Movement challenge autocratic Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad while campaigning for upcoming elections. Sheppard finds some respite from the worst effects of culture clash by socializing with his Iranian and international teammates, as well as befriending his physical therapist and her two friends, who comprise a trio of progressive, outspoken young women.

In public and on the court, Sheppard cuts something of an outsized figure -- a bundle of enthusiasm and humor charming nearly everyone he encounters, despite his obvious lack of cultural sensitivity. Director-cinematographer Till Schauder also obtains crucial insider access to the frequently frank discussions between Sheppard and his female acquaintances, who discuss their thoughts and feelings about politics, career and family with a freedom widely considered completely inappropriate in Iran.

With the advent of region-wide Arab Spring movements, however, these insights seem more repetitive than revelatory. Ultimately perhaps the film falls victim to overexposure resulting from widespread coverage of the disparate issues currently propelling much of the Islamic world into the multicultural realities of the 21st century. Technical aspects are serviceable overall, with a selection of Iranian hip hop tracks kicking things up a notch or two.

Venue: Los Angeles Film Festival
Production company: Partner Pictures
Director: Till Schauder
Producers: Sara Nodjoumi, Till Schauder
Executive producer: Abigail Disney

Director of photography: Till Schauder

Music: Kareem Roustom
Editors: David Teague, Till Schauder

No rating, 93 minutes